


Sin of commission, sin of omission

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Don Carlos | Don Carlo - Verdi/du Locle/Méry
Genre: Betrayal, Community: ladiesbingo, Confessions, Gen, Infidelity, Loyalty, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: The only person that Elisabeth could trust left long ago.





	Sin of commission, sin of omission

**Author's Note:**

> For the Ladiesbingo prompt 'Betrayal'

She was finished. As the swoon lifted and the shapes in front of her eyes resolved into faces – her the King husband; the Marquess di Posa; Eboli – it was the only thing she knew. She was alone, friendless, in a strange land, and with nowhere left for her to go.

The recriminations swirled around her, the King and di Posa flinging insults at each other with an abandon that must surely have consequences, Eboli helping her into a chair, kneeling at her side, her expression stricken. Slowly, she pieced it all together, remembered her stolen jewel box, the confrontation, the King's accusation, but it added nothing to what Elisabeth knew: she was finished.

At last the King left; the Marquess followed him.

'My queen.' Eboli wrung her hands, and Elisabeth found herself irritated by the theatricality of the gesture. 'Pardon me, O my queen!'

'What is it?' Elisabeth asked wearily.

Eboli set her gaze on the floor. 'It was I who stole your jewel box, I who showed the portrait of Carlos to the King.'

'Why did you do it?' She was barely curious. She had always known that she could trust nobody here: what difference did it make that this time it was Eboli?

A deep flush stained Eboli's cheeks. 'I was jealous – jealous of you, that the King's son loves you, and not me.' She was muttering, racked by guilt or humiliation or both. 'And there's more.'

'More?' She was desperately tired. She blinked, once, twice; Eboli swam in front of her eyes, and for a moment wish prevailed over reality and she could almost see the dear, trustworthy, anxious face of the Countess of Aremberg.

She would never see her again. Not in this life. Perhaps the next life was not so far away for Elisabeth. The King had not believed her; even if she could clear her name now, the suspicion would remain, and this must happen again and again. What would it be? Perhaps a charge of heresy, and the stake; perhaps a charge of treason, and the gallows or the block. It could only be a matter of time now.

'That which I accused you of doing, I have done myself.' Even Eboli's confessions were done in the grand manner, Elisabeth thought, disgusted. Perhaps there was genuine remorse there, perhaps not. 'The King... Perhaps you knew.'

Elisabeth had not known, but she was not surprised. She felt that nothing would surprise her now, not in this place. 'You will have to leave,' she said.

A better woman would have offered forgiveness, reinstatement. It would not do, either politically or personally. Her influence was too shaky for her to tolerate the presence of her husband's mistress in her own circle; and she did not think that she could trust herself to treat her with civility.

Where was Aremberg now? Wherever it was, Elisabeth hoped she was happy, and well, and untroubled by the suspicion and politics that stifled the Spanish court. It was surely due to her, she who had always been the only person here that could be trusted.

And yet...

'I gave you a cross, once,' she said, now, to Eboli. 'I ask you to return it, before you leave me.'

Without speaking, with sorrow in her eyes, Eboli drew out the cross on its long chain and laid it in Elisabeth's outstretched hand.

Once, Elisabeth had given Aremberg a ring and asked her to remember her and to be happy. Now, she thought that it must be impossible to do both. Would Eboli remember her, once she was free of this place? Elisabeth did not care. She was only glad that she would never see her again, that if she could not be trusted then at least she could be sent away. It was, after all, no less than had been done to poor Aremberg.

But Aremberg had left her, too. That was her crime, after all; that was why she had been sent away. Eboli had spoken, first to lie, and then to tell the truth; Aremberg had remained silent. The result had been the same: Elisabeth was left alone.

Aremberg had been all that Elisabeth had brought with her of France, and, unwitting, unwilling, she had betrayed her by doing nothing, had left her here alone. It had hurt almost as much as this deliberate, malicious, betrayal, and the only way that Elisabeth knew to punish Eboli was to inflict a yet greater solitude upon her own self.

'You must leave,' Elisabeth said, hearing her own voice cold and flat. 'I will offer you a choice: exile, or the cloister.' She held up a hand before Eboli could speak. She would gladly have taken either of them herself. 'You need not tell me which. It's enough that you leave me.'

Eboli nodded, and, like the Countess of Aremberg before her, left the Queen of Spain alone.


End file.
